Wednesday, January 2, 2008

In the aftermath of a deadly attack on American forces in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, diplomats are slow to act, but meanwhile, FBI special agent Ronald Fleury (Jamie Foxx) assembles a secret team of U.S. counter-terrorism investigators to enter the city and find the criminal behind what has quickly become an international incident. The crew, however, finds their attempt to capture the perpetrators stalled by bureaucracy and their presence unwelcome. Desperate to gain the trust they need to accomplish their mission in just five days, the team enlists the aid of a Saudi Arabian police officer (Ashraf Barhoum), but as the agents infiltrate the dark and complex world of the Saudi crime scene, they find that the perpetrator's next target may be them. Directed by Peter Berg, The Kingdom also stars Jennifer Garner, Chris Cooper, and Jason Bateman. ~ Cammila Albertson, All Movie Guide

Recently, I have heard about a number of films released that are usually called "Anti-Americanism". While I have issues and thoughts on Anti-Americanism as a useful phrase, today I just wanted to note the positive aspects of the FBI and the US citizens that have volunteered for a job to figure out the terrorists attacks as demonstrated in this film.

I do have to question that they created an impossible situation to get out of when the heroes got trapped in a narrow street with machine gunners, rocket launchers and others with hand grenades barraging them from all sides. In real life the US and the Arab Police would have died right then and there. This was sort of like Rambo never getting hit but killing 20 others with machine guns.

I loved watching the deleted scenes and this movie had plenty that would have been nice to have included in the film. I guess on DVDs, a longer film is easier to sit through. The making of the film was also worth it and they had an interesting special feature of having all four person(s) version of the last fight edited just for their own version of the fight.

Lastly since I love to spoil the endings since the quotes are so good. The last scene is called "Kill them All". It cuts back and forth between scenes but this is the text as best I could capture.Adam Leavitt (yes the one almost left behind): Fleury tell me what you whispered to Jan to get her to stop crying in the meeting. (Paraphrased).

Mother to child: Tell me, what did your grandfather whisper in your ear before he died?

Fleury: I told her we were going to kill them all.

Child to mother: Don't fear them, my child. We are going to kill them all.